Thermos may have caused fatal crash

A Thermos dropped between the brake and gas pedals of a bus might be to blame for a crash that killed three people in Queens in 2017, federal investigators said Thursday.

The horrific crash at Main St. and Northern Blvd. in Flushing on Sept. 18 that year occurred when a charter bus barreled through a red light at 60 mph — twice the speed limit — and smashed into a turning MTA Q20 bus.

The charter bus driver, a passenger on the MTA bus and a pedestrian were killed, and more than a dozen people were hurt.

The charter bus — operated by Dahlia Group Inc. — was traveling 30 mph on Northern Blvd. when according to an audio recording, a “metal rattling noise” was heard on the bus, said the National Transportation Safety Board report.

After the rattling began, the bus picked up speed.

The bus driver, Raymond Mong, 49, uttered a “one-word remark” two times and swerved to avoid stopped cars before the bus entered the intersection, the report said.

Investigators found a Thermos near the charter bus’s pedals at the scene, and Mong’s wife said her husband had brought a Thermos to work that day.

“The Thermos could potentially explain the metal rattling heard on the audio recording,” the report said.

When investigators reenacted the crash, they found it was possible that a Thermos could get lodged “beneath and between” the gas and brake pedals. That might have made the bus accelerate while making it impossible for Mong to hit the brakes, the NTSB found.

But the report was inconclusive, and the official finding is that the crash was caused by Mong’s “unintended acceleration of the motorcoach and inability to brake.”

Mong was awake and alert at the time of the crash, the NTSB found. “Investigators found no evidence that the motorcoach driver’s experience, training, route familiarity or pre-crash activities were factors in the collision,” the report stated.